Life, death, the Pope and Terry Schiavo

One of the things I'm responsible for at work is to electronically send the "Draw" down to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Newsaper for all "Single Copy" outlets in the greater St. Louis Area. "Draw" is just newspaper-speak for "request for papers" and "Single Copy" just means retail outlets, boxes that sit on the street and "hawkers," which are the kids that sell from the corners. So, yesterday (Friday), in addition to the entire world being focused on us due the NCAA Final Four being hosted by St. Louis, the Pope was sliding towards death. Since it sounded for a while that he might pass during the day on Friday, the Post-Dispatch understandably wanted to print more papers for the Saturday edition. If he died. I had to have both scenarios ready for the final decision by the Post that would come at around 10:45 pm. I left work thinking that he was going to die before then and Annette and I went out to eat. During that time I really got the feeling that he was going to live through the night or at least the Vatican would not announce anything until Saturday. So, we stopped by work on the way home and I switched the scenario to Pope not dead (that's what I named the file) and that's the way it finally turned out. All of this got me reading a lot of news stories (on the web, of course, not the newspaper!) and that got me thinking about a lot of things concerning life and death, especially since I'd been meaning to write a few thoughts on the Terry Schiavo case in Florida. One thing I wanted to comment on was something that I read between the lines in many, many articles and commentaries. That is the lack of understanding, on the part of the media and possibly many Americans, of basic Christian doctrine concerning life and death. I'll just run down these quickly:

1. The physical body and the "spirit" or "soul" go together. They were created together and do not get separated except by physical death. If someone is physically alive, like Terry Shiavo, her soul is still there. If a baby is in the womb, the soul is there.
2. Death is an event when the body quits functioning and the soul goes off to "heaven" or to be "with God." This, however, is not where it belongs as we were created body/mind/spirit creatures and these things do not exist apart from each other. I don't know what it's like, but I believe it may be like the time before you were conceived. I can just say that you were "with God."
3. Eternity is forever, but there will be an "end of time" when the soul is united with the same body you had before. Then you'll live forever in the presence of God.

Now, I know I left some details out. If you're really interested I can suggest some reading material for you - let me know. The main point I wanted bring out is, what I think a big reason many people don't understand the Christian point of view, and that is what can be summed up by the oft heard phrase, "the sanctity of life." God didn't create us to by "spiritual" beings. He breathed life (spirit) into a very physical body, a body that the Bible and science tells us is just made up of the stuff laying about. He meant to do that. He meant to create us just the way He did as body/spirit beings.

We all agree that murder is wrong. Our "modern" society has blurred the edges of the act. Whether it be in "right to life" battle like we saw recently in Florida or euthanasia, or abortion; the lines get blurred by "individuality" and a loss of respect for life itself.

I'll leave you with a case in point: If a woman has the right to an abortion, then she has that right no matter what you or I think of her. It doesn't matter what you think of her circumstances, she make the decision. Read this article and tell me what you think:

Doctors and health officials will consider whether more guidance on abortions is needed following the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute two doctors who authorised a late abortion on a foetus with a cleft lip and palate. read the whole article...